Iterable: how to keep mobile users active through push notifications

MOBILE . 19th July 2017

Keeping mobile users engaged with new apps and games is a tricky business, butrowth marketing platform Iterable has released a new report analysing how game publishers can do just that – which is important, considering 62 per cent of smartphone owners are now installing a game within a week of buying a new handset.

In its 2017 User Engagement Top 100 report for mobile gaming, Iterable found that 81 per cent of the top 100 fremium mobile games on iOS devices sent out at least one push notification to new users. Of those games, 75 per cent also requested permission to send push notifications immediately after launching the app, with just 12 per cent waiting until the second session.

Once permission was granted, Iterable said "the floodgates opened," as it received 1,817 push notifications in total from all 100 mobile games over the course of two weeks. That's an average of around 18 messages per game, or 1.3 messages per game per day.

There were a few outliers that sent more notifications than others that slightly skewed the results, Iterable said, as the median number of pushes was actually only six per game. That equates to one push notification by each game every 2.3 days.

Role-playing games were the biggest pushers, making up 61 per cent of all notifications. Sports and arcade games were the second largest group at 29 per cent, while 6 per cent came from puzzle titles and 4 per cent from simulation games.

This data came from analysing push messaging over two weeks, which aimed to create a snapshot of the mobile marketing tactics of the industry's leading gaming companies. Download the report for free here.